debra-rezervations

hi friends.
I'm new to blogging, but am assured that if I feel that I have something to say this is the best way to get things off my chest.
First things first...hopefully my title will tell you that I'm a First Nation woman. I also do not live on a reserve.
I grew up in the times of Cowboys vs Indians and now find my self living in the time of Indians vs Indians. My mother was enfranchised (baned from her home reserve) when she married my father in 1939 and moved with him to a white town 150 miles away. She was a shy woman who was openly discriminated against by her in-laws and towns people alike. I can remember school children war-whooping at us as we did the grocery shopping. I also remember her being admonished to have her 1/2 breeds keep their dirty hands off the merchandise, unless she was buying it...nobody wants something you lot have been touching.My mother (or any Indian, for that matter) ran the very real risk of being arrested if they went into any establishment that had a liquor license, unless accompanied by a white person. It was against the law to sell liquor to Indians, according to the Indian Act. I also remember going to see my Granny and various relatives on the rez only to be told we needed a pass- book and needed to give an exact time when we would be leaving. The one time the car broke down before we were retrieved from Gran's house we were escorted to the end of the rez to wait off reserve land to be picked-up. This was by the order of the Indian Agent, a government employee who lived on reserve to enforce these laws. Why did the Chiefs allow their enfranchised women to be treated so badly? Why did't they fight for these women? Well again the Indian Act said that no native person would be allowed to hire a lawyer and that would be the way things stayed till the 1960's. That was my last visit there till long after my mothers passing and the law was changed and she was given her status back,as well as her children. But not her grandchildren. My Uncles who married out (the term for native/non-native marriages) had given status to their wives and any minor children they brought to the marriage. This was the govt. policy of paternal rule.
So when the act, to ammend the Indian act (a racist document that many 1st. nation people live under even to this day) was passed in 1985 after many years of court battles fought on grounds of sex discrimination I too got a status card, but one hitch not my children. None of the enfranchised womens grandchildren would be recognized. Enter Sharon McIvor. Sharon took a court challenge on the grounds of sex discrimination, citing the paternal rule, (men who married out till around the 1970s, still passed their their status to their wives) and thus she (as did many others across the country still had white in-laws, and their children with status, but not her children) She won in the lower courts and was on her way to the highest court in the land when all of the sudden the Harper Government cancelled the court challenges program. Now the court challenge program is at the very heart of democrocy. If the citizenery isn't allowed to bring legal challenge against their Governments, then that assumes that the Government is infalliable, and then we live not in a democory but a dictarorship. The Aboriginal Women's Association then got behind the court challenge and began fund raising to continue the fight for an end to the discrimanation of aboriginal women. Then in late June of this year the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Chuck Strul made the announcement that they will be consulting with the AFN (Assembly of First Nations) and the Aboriginal Women's Association through out the summer to address this issue, and set the month of April 2010 as the time they should start to give status to the second generation.
regards debra